As you can see in the map below, the algae bloom stretches all
the way from Alaska to California:

This
year's harmful algae bloom goes all the way from Alaska to
California.NOAA Climate/NOAA
View

While not all algae species in the bloom are dangerous, some of
them produce a toxic chemical called domoic acid that can kill or
make animals sick — and can even impact human health. Domoic acid
is a neurotoxin produced by the algae
Pseudo-nitzchia. When an animal, say a clam, eats this algae,
it also injects the domoic acid, which can build up inside it.
Any bigger animal that comes along and eats it — including humans
— can get sick too if they take in enough of the toxin.

This year's bloom is so bad that we are seeing lots of animal
deaths. At least nine fin whales were found dead in the waters
off Alaska in June,
according to Alaska Dispatch News, and in July reports of
dead or dying whales, seals, birds, and fish have been rolling in
according to NOAA. It's difficult to pin these deaths on the
algae specifically, but signs are pointing to these toxins as the
cause.

Toxic
algae blooms, some of which are called red tides, can poison fish
and close local fisheries.Brian
Snyder/Reuters

"Ongoing testing shows that crab in these waters have domoic acid
levels that exceed health-safety standards," Dan Ayres, coastal
shellfish manager for the Washington Department of Fish and
Wildlife said in a
press release. "We've been closely watching toxin levels in
crab since closing beaches to razor-clam digging in May."

If a person eats too much fish or shellfish contaminated with
demoic acid they could get symptoms ranging from vomiting,
headaches, and dizziness to, in severe cases, breathing trouble
and seizures, and they could fall into a coma and die, according
to the California
Department of Public Health.

The algae doesn't just poison sea creatures, they also poison the
water and create dead zones when they die. The decomposing algae
use up all of the water's oxygen, making it unlivable for the
majority of sea life. There's nothing we can do to stop this
process, and it seems like it will keep getting worse as climate
change makes oceans warmer, creating more dangerous algae blooms.

As
the algae blooms, like this one off La Jolla, California, decay
they use up the water's oxygen and create dead
zones.Wikimedia Commons/Public
Domain

Luckily, a research division of NOAA is in the midst of a
five-year-long monitoring
program to develop an early-alert detection system for algae
blooms and their effects.

They send researchers out to harmful algae blooms to examine the
toxicity of the bloom, what type of species are blooming, and
under what conditions the algae is growing.

With the project expected to conclude in 2016, hopefully we will
have a better understanding of these blooms — and what we can do
about them — in the near future.